While I Was Out ...

For several months, we've had a tree in the backyard that has been exhibiting signs of ... well, let's be honest, it hasn't exhibited anything. It's been dead. As the proverbial doornail.

And I haven't wanted to admit it, because it used to be a focal point of the yard, the tallest oak at the top of the hill, a giant among lesser trees. But, ever the queen of denial, I kept thinking that maybe it would leaf back up--I loved that tree, and surely I could keep it alive with the power of my love. Nope.

So we got a price to take it down. Now, you may remember that I am opposed to the term "put down" when applied to a pet. You put down an empty soda bottle, or maybe a pesky heroin addiction, not your friend. But when it comes to trees, you gotta put 'em down. In this case, "down" is preferable to "on the roof" or "in your bedroom," but it also implies that you don't tear your fence up while you're doing it.

It turns out that this is an expensive sort of a job. We got a couple of estimates, ranging from $850 to $1200. To put that in terms that you might understand, $850 (the low end) is approximately 34 skeins of sock yarn. See? I knew you'd be appalled. (Let's not even go in the other direction and compute what my sock yarn stash must have cost me using those calculations--it wouldn't be pretty!)

So, while it's been on my list of "things to do," it hasn't been high. After all, the deductible if it DID fall on the house would be $500, and the cost to avoid the deductible would be $850...you do the math.

Anyway, while I was out of town (Macon, for a class), Mr. Pug and I talked about it on the phone and agreed that we'd handle it after the first of the year, or when our investments come back out of the swamp, or after one of us hits the lottery. So imagine my surprise to be shown ... the stump above. It's gone. I've been out in the backyard 10 or 15 times since I returned and ... never noticed the tree was gone. Mr. Pug got tired of waiting for me to figure out how to do it and did it. Men! Way to make a complicated issue simple.

But back to me, since it's (still) all about me. How could I not notice something like that? And the answer is ... that tree was dead to me. I was over it. It had gone from being a love object to ... a yarn money sucking machine.

Anyone notice a parallel between a dead tree and a certain Noro Silk Garden Sock yarn? Yup! Both dead to me.